POLITICAL SCIENCE.
and of Macedonia, and after sundry vicissitudes was dissolved
in B. c. 145. Ought it to be called a state formed out of a
league, or a mere league of states ? In a noted passage of
Polybius (ii., 37, end), the opinion of this eminent historian,
a contemporary of its last days, and whose father was one of
its best and most illustrious supporters, would seem to make for
the propriety of calling it a state. He says that " \vhile many
had attempted in the past times to bring the Peloponnesians
into a community of interests, and no one was able to reach
this point because in every instance they endeavored to do
it not for the sake of the common liberty but of their own
power, the Achaean movement met with a different result.
So great a unity was effected here, that not only the com-
munity of allies and friends was brought about, but they
made use also of the same laws, and weights and measures
and coins, and, besides all this, of the same magistrates, sena-
tors *&& judges; and in fact, Peloponnesus, as a whole, dif-
fered from a single city only in this, that its inhabitants were
not included within the same surrounding wall, while all
things else were the same and similar both in a public respect
and for individuals in their different cities."
If we could persuade ourselves that this was an unexag-
gerated description, we should have to say that the relation
of the central power to the cities composing the union was
more like that of a state to municipalities than like any other
union such as we find among the ancient republics. But it
can be no other than an exaggeration, unless the author
meant by the same laws, the same as far as their united
interests were concerned ; and, by the same magistrates,
senators, and judges, common officers of this kind for poli-
tical purposes. It is very natural to suppose also that a new
intercourse sprang up among the states of the union, which
of itself would assimilate them to each other in important
respects. At the time of its formation there were tyrants in
different cities, and it was natural that the league, which had
put down those within its original narrow borders, should
lend its aid to kindred movements, as its sphere became more